The Innovation Center: How Much Can It Improve Quality and Reduce Costs – and How Quickly?

Monday, July 18, 2011

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The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) authorized the creation of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. CMMI seeks to test innovative health care payment and service delivery models that can potentially enhance quality of care for beneficiaries while reducing costs. From 2011 to 2019, the ACA provides $10 billion in funding to support the Innovation Center’s goals.

As CMMI collaborates with various stakeholders across the health care system to develop new models of care, challenges may arise involving the limited timeframe for the agency to perform its work, the need to pursue existing innovations while aligning them with the proper evidentiary support, and decisions about trying to replicate local innovations nationally. Also key is ensuring accountability throughout the process.

How is CMMI planning to administer its $10 billion in funding? What early projects is the center undertaking? Is there private sector evidence that CMMI’s goals can be achieved? What will happen to existing innovations now being rolled out by providers and hospitals? What are key factors in deciding what community-based innovations will be replicated across the country?

To address these and related questions, the Alliance for Health Reform and The Commonwealth Fund sponsored a July 18 briefing.